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From Realism to (unhinged) Romanticism in the blink of a paragraph. And so to Powering Up by former chief scientist Alan Finkel (Black Inc., June 2023). The subtitle is telling: “Unleashing the clean energy supply chain.” Unleashing. Really? Champing at the bit? Hardly. A superabundance of carrots is required to get this stop-and-start flighty mare much beyond the starting gate. And she’ll run out of puff long before the finishing line.
Before I get into the book itself, let me explain that I used a $20 gift voucher, which I’d had for some time, to lessen the purchasing pain. This left only $15 to pay. Also I made it clear to the bookseller that I was not a greenie. One has to try to preserve one’s reputation. I asked that it be wrapped. Who knows who I might have met on the way home.
Let me also get this out of the way, the book is a rich repository of information on the ins and outs of renewable energy. If you want to know how to compare a kilogram of green hydrogen with a kilojoule of natural gas, it’s here. If you want to know about rare earth minerals; about digitalisation of the grid; about all possible ways to store power, and so much more, it’s here. Unfortunately, however, there is no index. That’s not an oversight, I don’t think. The book is a polemic from a true believer; facts are incidental to the narrative.
A major theme of the book is the need to diversify supply chains. Well and good to a degree. But a short course in economics would help. Comparative advantage tends to result in a concentration of supply of particular commodities in those regions of the world where they can be produced most cheaply. Changes around the edges can be made, at a cost to the public purse, in the 
interests of national security. Beyond that, economics will out. If solar panels can be made in China at half the cost they can be made in Australia or the U.S., they will be made in China. Simple!
I started with Finkel’s emphasis on supply chains because it is emblematic of the simple-minded naivety which courses throughout the book. Concessions about the sheer size of the task ahead are juxtaposed with Panglossian wishful thinking. Here is one of many examples. “Solar and wind combined generated more than 10% of the world’s electricity [in 2021], up from 2.3 per cent just ten years earlier,” he writes. He goes on: “If the fourfold increase per decade can be maintained for the next two decades, that would see the global solar and wind electricity share increase from 10% to 160%.”
He obviously doesn’t grasp the different applications of arithmetic versus geometric growth. Fecund birds and bees exhibit geometric growth. Building things is a quite different kettle of fish. Going from 10 per cent to 40 per cent of the pie is much harder than going from 2.3 per cent to 10per cent — four times harder actually. And going to 160 per cent is four times harder again; and that’s without taking account of the fact that the pie is ever growing. In a phrase, it’s pie-in-the-sky.
Wishful thinking always prevails. To wit: “The task ahead is daunting, but I am a great believer in human ingenuity to overcome such challenges.” Here is perhaps the starkest example, though there are many to choose from:
To date, at a global level, progress in the clean energy transition has been sluggish…back in 1990, 87% of all energy consumed came from coal, oil and gas…Fast forward thirty-one years to 2021, and the share of global energy provided by fossil fuels had fallen slightly to 83%…we have to eliminate the remaining 83 percentage points before 2050.
Focus on that daunting task. We have to do twenty-one times as much (83% versus 4%) in the next thirty years as spending untold billions has achieved in the last thirty years. How in the world will that be remotely possible? Well, Finkel has a cunning plan.
“Think of forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think of endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert,” he writes. Not a spoof, as I first thought, when he was reported as saying it. Also think of overbuilding of solar and wind, bringing plated capacity to “about four times higher than peak demand.” Hence, panels and turbines devasting landscapes so far as the eye can see. What else? Ships running on ammonia produced from green hydrogen; planes flying on jet fuel from biomass; trucks running on (green) hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen replacing natural gas for firming as required, demand management (a euphemism for power rationing), and cars all electric in the Australian “electrostate of the future.” In which too, Australia will be exporting ammonia made from green hydrogen. “Shipping sunshine,” Finkle calls it. You couldn’t make it up.
But hold on. This is Australia. Let me repeat my question in a more expansive way. How in the world will the world move to an “electric age,” entirely free from the use of fossil fuels before 2050? If Finkel has Australia on a totally infeasible path, which he does, how much less credible is his assumption that China and India will play ball? Will follow us like lemmings? It is plainly delusional. Unlike the West, China and India haven’t forgotten what cheap and reliable power looks like.
At another level, Finkel minimises the intermittency and unreliability of sun and wind power on the scantiest basis. In my view, this is totally irresponsible. He covers dunkelflautes (little wind or sun) in just half of page 124. He quotes just one study, which concluded “that dunkelflautes might not be as concerning as has been suggested.” Imagine how that further cements the delusions of Chris Bowen & Co. For Finkel’s edification, here’s another study: Paul Miskelly, “Wind Farms in Eastern Australia – Some Lessons,” Sage Journals.
Miskelly analysed data produced by AEMO for the year 2010, consisting of the electricity output from each windfarm, at five-minute intervals, across the whole of eastern Australia. Among his findings: “The output of any individual wind farm can vary enormously [and] the total wind output across the entire grid falls rapidly to zero or near zero on many occasions during the calendar year.” During the first six months of the year, Miskelly found there were 58 intervals of various durations in which the output from the whole fleet of wind farms across Eastern Australia fell below 2 percent of plated capacity; the longest for 19 hours. His conclusion:
This high frequency of [wind failure], and the power requirements of wind turbines even while idle…may require levels of fossil-fuel standby capacity that approach the total installed capacity of the entire wind-farm fleet.
It’s clear, unless massive overbuilding of solar power can make up for the entire becalmed wind fleet (somewhat difficult on cloudy days or of an evening, night and early morning) that backouts are guaranteed; unless, that is, sufficient backup power is at the ready to take over. You don’t have to be a “scientist” to understand that. It is the bleeding obvious.
Apparently too, throughout this greening process of the power supply, requiring mineral mining, as Finkle concedes, of “staggering” proportions, “governments and companies must ensure that the mining and refining are responsibly undertaken.” For their part, miners “must respect the rights of indigenous communities … and ensure that all workers are well trained and responsibly employed.” No slave and child labour allowed. China and Africa take note. Weep for the loss of common sense; for the loss of realism.
Finkel lists a number of record weather events to underscore the ravages of imagined man-made climate change. As we know by now, these record extreme weather events are ten-a-penny out of the mouths of alarmists. Few, if any, stand up to scrutiny. It doesn’t matter to them, they just broadcast new ones. It’s not as if they are called to account by a sceptical media. I looked closely at only a couple he listed. Neither stood up.
He cites the drying up of The Great Lake in Utah. Yes it reached a very low level in 2022, maybe a record low, as a result of a drought. But increasing calls on the river system for irrigation and other purposes have severely lessened inflow into the lake. Something which he omitted to mention. He cites an all-time Australian record temperature of 50.7⁰C in the Pilbara region of WA in 2021. But, Oodnadatta in SA recorded the same temperature in 1960. And of course, the 51.7⁰C recorded in Burke in 1909, which has been excluded by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology policy of only referencing temperatures after 1910, is the real record. The world has got a little warmer since end of the Little Ice Age. So, as modern measurements only began since then, it would be surprising if new records were not set. No need to make them up.
I’ll end my potted account of Finkel’s quixotic quest to save the planet with something which sums up the mindset of the deluded Left. It concerns the Congo and cobalt and undesirable workplace practices, including child labour. In case you didn’t know, the Congo’s troubles can be slated home to “the world’s most brutal examples of colonialism, led by King Leopold II of Belgium more than 100 years ago.” There it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if “global warming” itself were not the fault of Western civilisation. Oh, it is! That means we have to tear it down by dismembering the cheap and reliable power on which it was built. I bought the book so you don’t have to.
Just demonstrates again the delusion that Australia is in the hands of smart people. He was chief scientist. I rest my case. CSIRO has gone the same way.
Thanks, Peter, for this depressing review. Well beyond a dream — a terrifying nightmare. Finkel writes gushingly, “Think of forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think of endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert.” Yes, and that’s just for the piddly population of Australia, ca. 3% of the world’s total. Where would such “infrastructure” fit in, say, Europe, or SE Asia? No concerns for natural habitats? Meanwhile, the planet will continue along its warming up cycle, until it decides to cool back down (not likely in our lifetimes, though).
To give the good professor the benefit of the doubt, could it be possible that his book is just a spoof? Written to illustrate the stupidity, the impossibility, of the entire enterprise? After all, he couldn’t state that outright, at risk of losing his job. Trouble is, of course, that our political masters will read it literally.
I seem to recall Alan Finked saying whatever we did in Australia would make no difference to the temperature. So we spend billions for no result?
The fundamental problem is this-baseload power will always be required,and cannot be turned on and off-it must be operated continuously.That means that we are paying twice for the same thing.
Good point Sabena. Wouldn’t it be funny if Chris Bowen came forward with the solution to intermittent wind;being to power the wind Turbines with base load power or better still locate them near a coal powered power station whose sole purpose is to power a big wind fan to power the turbines in the wind farm during off peak wind availability?
Actually, you really do need the coal-fired power station nearby in case there’s no wind. It is essential to keep the turbines ticking over lest the bearings seize up, and if the wind won’t do it then you need to pump some electricity, from an external source, back into the turbines.
Green energy is empowering or rather is the power driving the political the climate. Climate change is real : correspondingly the political climate is surreal and as such we have surreal humour; hence the joke is on us.
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“Surreal humour is predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are illogical Portrayals of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiters, irrational or absurd situations and expressions of nonesense.”
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“Absurdisms claim is that the whole world is absurd”. This has to be one of the core pillars of behind Neo Marxist thinking.
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Marxist and lefty nongs don’t have a sense of humour. Climate Change is their idea of a joke- get it? It’s a Marxist joke – a deadly serious one.
Question does mathematics or eco’s have the capacity to accommodate illogical form? Would it work? Is that illogical form Marxism?
Good work Peter.
“Think of forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think of endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert,” Mind boggling..!!
As an example the Glenrowan solar farm which covers 800 acres (3 square Km) of land provides 150 megawatts of power apparently sufficient to provide 41,000 homes with power. What happens when the sun goes down or it is a cloudy day. Another issue is the fact that to equal the output of a conventional power station such as a LoyYang (2100Mw every hour) would require covering an area of 42 square kilometers of land with panels and only provide power at best 30% of the time. Of Course to offset the downtime increase the area to 150 square kilometers and find some way to store the excess energy generated which has not yet been invented. Similar arguments are advanced for wind power except that the area required increases to 2000 square Kilometers.
It’s Climate Change it everything to do with (Mother Nature)-Modelling.
Let’s pretend (which sounds like a better title for Finkel’s book) that the Australian landmass represents the world and Australia’s population likewise represents the world’s total human population.
In a global sense The City of Newcastle in NSW would be the equivalent of the population of Australia and these clowns think that if Newcastle reduced it’s output of CO2 and the rest of Australia (the world) carried on as normal the good people of Newcastle would be able to change the weather for the whole of Australia!!
The stupidity, naivety and arrogance of these people like Finkel knows no bounds and everyday taxpayers will bear the brunt of this climate change BS for decades to come. P.S. I have no issue with the good people of Newcastle, it’s just your numbers came up!
Alan Finkel is supposed to be a scientist.
Every scientist I have met for relevant discussion knows that belief is not part of hard science. Belief is for story tellers. Observation, measurement, deduction, hypothesis formulation are tools of the proper scientist.
So, for me, the question is one of motivation. What drives Alan Finkel to write about beliefs that have not been through scientific hypothesis testing? Or even cost:benefit analysis. Is it follow the money, is it personal peculiarity of the brain? What motivated him? I wish I knew.
I do know that he promotes actions that are very expensive for other people. If he is believed and his ideas adopted, we will become cripplingly, nationally, economically crushed. See German Energiewende for examples. Qui bono? Geoff S
I’ve pondered that question, Geoff S, as have many others.
In Finkel’s case, my best hypothesis is “noble cause corruption”. Of course he is aware of the leaps of illogic in his stance, but saving the planet requires hucksterism to win over the hoi polloi – and he is not now in the firing line of hard advice so waving arms, yelling about with cherry picks is a feel good.
Steve Koonin’s book Unsettled is a good example of an honest attempt to square the circle. In cntrast, Finkel thinks that the city-based unwashed neither understand the enormity of the stupidity in carpeting the deserts with sun panels nor do they care that they don’t understand.
He’s right of course. Though now there is an under-edge, as the definition of well-off has become the capacity to heat a room in your house in winter.
Yes, noble cause corruption, but combined and reinforced with “scientist as celebrity” relevance, now morphed into SaC Relevance Deprivation.
Unless it’s your turn to have your demand managed.
How’s your social credit score?
Sorry, my “Cui bono” was changed in typing to “Qui bono”.
Missed it.
Do spell correctors have Spanish accents?
Also, I’m forever changing wrong “it’s” back to “its”.
Geoff S
Qui bimbo?*
*An individual, typically a human, regarded as being intellectually vacuous and having an inordinate interest in appearing clever and pc .
Isn’t Finkel the bloke who, in response to a question of how much difference to global temperatures would net zero in Australia cause, replied next to nothing?
What is his motivation to now be spruiking the placement of ‘renewables’ all over the Australian landscape?
Dysrationalia is defined as the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a concept in educational psychology and is not a clinical disorder such as a thought disorder. Dysrationalia can be a resource to help explain why smart people fall for Ponzi schemes and other fraudulent encounters.
Great stuff!
Terrific article; thank you. (Not to be pedantic, but Bourke.)
“Think of forests of wind farms carpeting hills and cliffs from sea to sky. Think of endless arrays of solar panels…”
Except in Teals voting electorates.
Not pedantry GrantB. Should get place names right. Bourke. Thanks, Peter.
By the way, I also have Finkle instead of Finkel at one point. Ah well.
The reviewer makes mention of that precise German compound noun describing ‘little wind or sun’: dunkelflautes. It reminds me of another, very obscure germanic noun: schlauergrünerFinkeler. SchlauergrünerFinkeler roughly translates as someone who suffers from the wishful thinking of knowing all about the advantages of green energy, while ignoring their fatal downsides. GrünerTugendsignalgeber is a closely related descriptor.
“… the 51.7⁰C recorded in Burke in 1909”
I went through Immigration at Vladivostok in early January 1979, and the Russians were agog at having read of birds falling out of the sky at Cocklebiddy because it was so hot and when I got back home, I found it reported in Oz papers as having been 51.7°C on Jan 3, 1979.
But Cocklebiddy was probably not an official recording station.
From the Canberra Times 04 January, 1979
PERTH: Birds reportedly
dropped out of the sky yesterday
during extreme heat which caused
distress and mechanical problems
for motorists travelling the Eyre
Highway on the Nullarbor Plain.
The maximum temperature at the
small settlement of Cocklebiddy
was 51.7 degrees (125 deg on the
fahrenheit scale).
Brilliant critique PS. Thank you.
The ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris, utter hubris.
They wisely left it up to their gods and goddesses on Mt Olympus to deal with the weather.
GS: “Alan Finkel is supposed to be a scientist.”
Richard Feynman’s definition of a scientist:”a person who believes in the ignorance of experts.”
Our PM surely will present a copy of Powering Up to King Charles on his visit to Buckingham Palace this week.
One of the glaring falsehoods of renewable energy, is the renewable part. Nothing renewable about the finite reserves of Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper and all other ‘rare’ earth minerals required for Finkel’s Green revelation. Just like the notion that this energy is ‘clean’ and that the plant life sustaining CO2 is somehow a ‘pollutant’ it takes a suspension of logic to arrive at this BS narrative.
Geologists and other scientists who have worked within the hydrocarbon industry often get painted as puppets of the industry, you can bet your bottom dollar Finkel is chest deep in investment in the mining of these toxic and noxious critical minerals of his ‘green’ revolution.
There is one core quality required to be a modern globalist ‘progressive’ – the limitless capacity for rank hypocrisy.